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Jonathan Edwards Rhetorical Devices

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Jonathan Edwards was a great American theologian who was an eighteenth century Puritan preacher who delivered a six hour sermon in 1741, Connecticut to a congregation of Puritans. The purpose was to convince the congregation into seeking salvation by accepting God and to convince the unholy if they continued their ways they would end up in hell. To convince his audience Edwards uses rhetorical devices such as metaphor repetition and bandwagon to invoke fear into his audience.
During Edwards Sermon he uses metaphor when describing God. In his sermon he states that God is a higher being who's hand is holding us, the sinners, above the fiery pits of hell. He also states it is only God's pleasure that we are not falling into the fire and brimstone tht is hell, Edwards then goes on to compare God's wrath to swirling waters ready to devour sinners in its fiery floods. So strong that even the strongest devil would be no match against the flood that is God's wrath. The comparison shows that God …show more content…

He describes heaven as a magnificently holy place filled with love, celebration, and all the holy Puritans who worked, endured, and face the challenges that came to fully embracing God. On the other hand Edwards goes on to explain how pitiful it would be for the sinners to miss out on the glorious celebrations up in heaven and spend the rest of eternity in the fiery vortex of pain and suffering that is hell. All because they did not repent their misdeeds while refusing to follow the holy ways of God. This form of persuasion is meant to strike fear into the Puritans hearts because this means that there is a great possibility that each individual is not worthy of God's love and that they will miss out on the glorious reservation in heaven because they are not good enough for God's

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146 Words | 1 Pages

At this point Edwards has grasped the attention of his listeners by using pathos to pertain to their emotions and feelings. Towards the end of the sermon his tone switches to one of reason in terms of not neglecting his words. He asks a series of rhetorical questions such as those who are unconverted and do not teach their children of Christ that they too will have to witness the wrath of God. As for literary devices such as metaphors, similes, and allegories, Edwards does not disappoint for his use of them most likely whipped a lot of Puritans back into their faith.

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234 Words | 1 Pages

Jonathan Edwards achieves the tone of his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by using imagery. Edwards explains to his audience that unless they find salvation, God is the only one keeping them out of “the pit.” He succeeds in making his audience want to find salvation by planting images in their heads such as, “the bow of God’s wrath is bent, and injustice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow.” By saying this to the audience, he has strengthened the fear of God that is already prevalent in the Puritan religion. God’s disappointment in humans is expressed when he says, “you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.”

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751 Words | 4 Pages

It is clear that Edwards chose this particular sermon because it was an effective and relative way to convey his message of condemnation. It was the easier way he could reach the audience that his message was targeting. It instilled the fear of what is to come and the unknown futures if they continue to remain stagnant. After the audience had been instilled with fear, he once again brings back the thought of repentance.

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1763 Words | 8 Pages

One of his well-known sermon is “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” preached at the meeting house in the village of Enfield, Connecticut, on Sunday, July 8, 1741, at the height of the great awakening. In this sermon, Edwards focused on the consequences of leading a sinful life, the power of God and repenting of ones sins, in order to be saved from hell. The purpose behind this piece of writing was not to terrorize or dismay the hearers, but to make them repent and believe in God again. This piece was aimed at those who lacked belief in God as well as churches.

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726 Words | 3 Pages

It is explained that God is the only one who is able to save people from going to Hell. Edwards wants people to imagine how evil and distressed life would be without Gods love and mercy. He explains that to not burn in Hell people need to ask for forgiveness from God, experience Gods mercy, and continuously practice the Lords word. Edwards really lets the message of “Gods wrath” sink into our minds to show how mighty, powerful, and capable the Lord is. The Lord gives us many opportunities to rely on Him and when we need his love and mercy the most.

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961 Words | 4 Pages

Jonathan Edwards was someone who, during his time, had spoken about many things when he preached, but the people listening left with very different ideas then what he intended. Edwards's sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," summaries the Puritan view of a fearful God through his imagery and his views as a Puritan preacher.

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220 Words | 1 Pages

In 1741, the Theologian delivered the sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God to a small congregation of people, yet it started an uprising in the theology of the Great Awakening. He wanted to install fear of hell, and to tell everyone to repent to God for forgiveness. In the sermon, Edwards uses language that uses words or expressions with a meaning that is different from the literal interpretation, or otherwise known as figurative language.

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Thesis: Jonathan Edwards in the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” compels his listeners to believe in God and reach salvation by creating the sense of fear among its listeners arguing that otherwise they would end up in Hell. Summary: In the sermon, Edwards explains in detail to his audience how Hell will feel like. He uses figurative language to simulate how they will be judged by God and sent to hell if they don’t believe.

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Edwards’ was a Puritan himself and so the theme of his sermon is basically representing the whole idea of a puritan way of life. Some of the themes that Edwards repeats is one, humanity is naturally evil and two, God is merciful, but is unavailable. The first theme would especially be pertinent and appropriate to a Puritan audience because the Puritans had the belief that all humans were born as sinners and that they deserved eternal, everlasting punishment. The second theme would especially be pertinent and appropriate to a Puritan audience because the Puritans had the belief in the mercy of God, but that only the selected ones would be saved through the death of Jesus Christ/God. No one really knew if they were going to be saved or damned.

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549 Words | 3 Pages

Edwards wants us to know that when we don’t listen to God and turned away from and when we follow the Satan’s ways, we will go to Hell. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Johnathan Edwards, wants us to imagine Hell and what the consequences are. Edwards wants us to know that men who are sinners are more likely to go to Hell, and to consider the danger that we are

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873 Words | 4 Pages

In crafting his highly effective sermon, Edwards utilizes his authority as a man of God and as an interpreter of the scriptures, a logical and direct organization of arguments, and violent imagery to convince his audience of the vengeance of God against man. Jonathan Edwards begins his sermon by quoting

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1253 Words | 6 Pages

It was during the Great Awakening, when powerful preachers like Jonathan Edwards decided to intensify their ways of broadcasting their religious seriousness. The idea of secularism and religious neglect had been the cause for this religious movement. In his sermon, from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Edwards used strategies to guilt, persuade, and redirect the “sinners” into conversion, and to give a wakeup call to those who overemphasize their own worthiness as holy citizens. Throughout his sermon, Edwards used a variety of figurative language like imagery, metaphors, personification, and allusions to reveal his attitude towards “sinners” as unworthy and insignificant in the eyes of God, and his attitude towards God as being enraged

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817 Words | 4 Pages

Jonathan Edwards, a preacher, wrote the sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". In the sermon, Edwards argues that everyone was out of God's favor and they needed to return to a righteous path. The tone of the sermon is indignant and authoritative. Jonathan Edwards uses imagery, logos, and pathos to encourage the unconverted audience to turn to God in order to escape his wrath. Elemental imagery is used in the sermon to inspire fear in the audience.

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404 Words | 2 Pages

Rhetorical Analysis of Jonathan edwards’s Sinners in the hand of an angry god: jeremiad Jonathan edwards, is known as one of the most important religious figures of the great awakening, edwards became known for his zealous sermon “sinners at the hand of an angry god”. During his sermon he implies that if his congregation does not repent to christ they are in “danger of great wrath and infinite misery”. Throughout this sermon edwards uses literary devices such as strong diction, powerful syntax and juxtaposition to save his congregation from eternal damnation. Throughout Edwards’s sermon the use of turgid diction is exceedingly prevalent.

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928 Words | 4 Pages

The majority of this sermon is dedicated to the audience whom Edwards views with repulsion. He uses imagery to describe the awful Hell that he believes the people in the congregation will end up in and calls it a “great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath” (Paragraph 8). He illustrates the never ending state of Hell in order to frighten everyone in the audience. He sees each and every person as damned and honestly believes they deserve be sent to Hell to burn for all eternity. He feels no sympathy for them because they are completely free to do what they want and he knows that what they do with their free will is commit sin.

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